


spitting distance

by sauntering_down



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: AND some serious concerns about this 'Dolores' person, Allison is having a very long day, Diego is no help with that last one, Gen, Missing Scene, and a lot of Vanya-related guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-18 19:02:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18125234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sauntering_down/pseuds/sauntering_down
Summary: (missing scene from episode 7, 'The Day That Was'.)“Pleasedo not get us pulled over.”  She could hear herself now –what seems to be the problem, officer?  It’s just me, my knife-toting brother, some prescription pills that don’t belong to us, and this bleeding, unconscious child.That’d end well.





	spitting distance

**Author's Note:**

> capitalizing titles is for dweebs
> 
> i skimmed from the end of episode two to the relevant point in seven, and i'm _fairly_ certain nobody ever actually explains to Allison who or what Dolores is. if i'm wrong, well... i'm wrong. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

When Claire was around two months old, Allison had walked into the kitchen to see the mail on the counter, a mug broken on the tile, and her husband frantically dialing the police.  The object of his concern was a letter that had arrived that afternoon.  At his insistence, she examined it from a foot away with a set of tongs, keeping her hands to herself.  “In case there are fingerprints,” Patrick had said. 

It was the most horrifying, disgusting thing she ever read.  Signed ‘your not-so-secret admirer’, the writer had gone on for almost six pages, explicitly detailing everything he wanted to do to her.  She was unnerved, but not truly frightened, until the last few paragraphs – this lunatic wasn’t only obsessed with her, but her _daughter_ , as well.  Her beautiful baby girl who’d just started smiling when she heard Allison’s voice.  Once the cops arrived, Allison made a weak joke about knowing she’d _really_ made it in Hollywood, now that she had her very own unhinged stalker.  Then she said she'd rip him apart with her bare hands if he came anywhere near her daughter.  Patrick had moved the crib to their bedroom, and Claire stayed within arm's reach until an electrical engineer from Oregon was arrested two weeks later.

Today, standing in Leonard Peabody’s attic, she thought she might’ve gotten off easy.  Some guys had man caves; this guy had a room full of _absolute apeshit_.  And again, while she was apparently a target – along with the rest of the team – it wasn’t herself Allison worried for.  _This_ lunatic was dating her sister.  All she could think about was finding Vanya, outright begging her to listen if she had to, showing her the police file that proved her boyfriend wasn’t who he claimed to be.  Oh, and punching Peabody in the dick.  It might not stop the apocalypse he was supposedly bringing about, but it’d make her feel better. 

Unfortunately, first, they needed to leave, and maneuvering a hundred pounds of dead weight down a rickety fold-out ladder was easier said than done. 

“Good thing he’s tiny,” Allison grunted.  The ladder, probably not built to accommodate more than one person at a time, creaked dangerously.  “Imagine trying to lug someone like Klaus down… or Luther.”

“Yeah, Luther’d be staying up there.”  Diego, with one arm in a sling, had the more difficult job; his good arm was looped around Five’s torso and he made his way from rung to rung like he was descending a steep, shaky staircase.  He couldn’t hold onto anything for balance.  Wishing they’d traded places, Allison kept a death grip on Five’s legs and gingerly stretched her foot until she felt it touch the ground.

“All right, here, give him to me before you drop him on his head,” she said, once both feet were firmly on the floor.

“Might improve his personality.”

“Maybe, but we need him intact.  Hold on, hold on….” She wiped her bloody hand on her pants, curled one arm beneath his knees, and slid the other around his back.  “Okay, let go.  I’ve got him.”  Allison was accustomed to carrying Claire and Five was heavier than he looked, but she could manage for a while.  Diego jumped the last two rungs, folded the ladder up, slammed the door, and then darted into what looked like Peabody’s bedroom.  “Uh, what are you doing?”

Something went _crash_.  Allison peered around the corner and stared at her brother as he yanked a few more drawers from the dresser, upending them.  “When this creepy bastard comes home to his front door busted out,” Diego said, shifting the mattress a few inches off the bedframe, “I want him to see a regular old robbery.  Someone looking for cash or drugs.  Because if he thinks we had anything to do with it…”

“He might take it out on her,” Allison finished, closing her eyes.  _Fuck_.  “This wouldn’t be necessary if you hadn’t gone Incredible Hulk on the door.”  But what was done was done, so she waited, arms aching, as Diego hastily raided the bathroom and swiped a couple pill bottles.  A decorative figurine on the edge of the counter fell and shattered.  Five didn’t so much as twitch at the racket, his head lolling back.  Allison hitched him up a little further until his head rested against her shoulder instead.

The main staircase took less effort to navigate.  Diego rushed ahead and ransacked the first floor, leaving cabinet doors askew and couch cushions overturned, and joined her with a massive jar of change tucked under his arm.  “This was sitting out in the open.  No burglar would leave it.”

Allison shrugged.  “It can help pay for the therapy we’re all going to need once this is over.”

A few more shards of glass fell from the door as Diego opened it, gesturing for Allison to go first.  It was still light out, so they had no chance of leaving completely unnoticed.  She could see an elderly couple walking on the sidewalk across the street, a girl riding a scooter on the driveway next door, someone parking at the curb a few houses down.  A lawnmower was going somewhere nearby.  Praying none of the neighbors were paying close attention, she turned sideways to fit through the frame and speed-walked across the lawn to the car.

“We’ll lay him in the back,” Diego said, popping the trunk and tossing the jar of coins inside.  “You gonna sit with him?”

“Yeah.”  They got Five situated and then Allison awkwardly clambered in, settling his head and shoulders on her lap.  The engine rattled to life.  “This neighborhood’s more than twenty minutes from the hospital; we’ve gotta move.”

“We’re closer to home.”  Diego stomped on the gas and the car lurched away from the curb.

Allison, peeling back layers of blood-soaked clothing, looked up and raised her eyebrows.  “Are you serious?  Even if we could handle this ourselves, if he loses too much blood, we’re in trouble.  None of us can donate to him.”  Reginald had insisted the team know one another’s blood types, just in case.  She remembered making up little sayings so they’d stick in her memory – _B is for Ben, and he’s always positive.  Luther loves space; he’s AB+, the **universal** recipient_.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have a supply of A- banked for Five.

“We _can_ handle this ourselves,” Diego said firmly.

She sighed and muttered, “I need to put pressure on this.”  With every breath, the hole in Five’s stomach drooled blood.  “Do you have a first aid kit in here?”

“I _did_.  The last time I bailed Klaus out of jail, he stole it.”  Diego took his right hand off the steering wheel and reached back, pointing behind the passenger seat.  “You see a bag down there, under the seat?”

“Yep.” 

“Good.  There should – shit.”  They’d started drifting into the other lane.  Diego grabbed the wheel again, quickly corrected their course, and said, “I’ve got some extra clothes in it.  Should be something you can use for now.”

She really hoped he meant normal clothes and not spare parts for that fetish gear he ran around in.  Trying not to squash Five, she stretched her arm as far as it would go, scrabbled at the canvas with her nails, and finally got a finger hooked into the strap.  They soared through an intersection as she sat back up.  “Tell me that wasn’t red.”

“Nah, still yellow.”

“ _Please_ do not get us pulled over.”  She could hear herself now – _what seems to be the problem, officer?  It’s just me, my knife-toting brother, some prescription pills that don’t belong to us, and this bleeding, unconscious child_.  That’d end well.  Allison jerked the zipper open and saw a crumpled t-shirt right on top.  In the interest of hygiene, she gave it a cursory sniff – nothing, neither sweat nor detergent, so she figured it’d do.  She folded it into a makeshift dressing, looked at Five’s slack face.  “Sorry,” she whispered, then pressed Diego’s shirt against the wound, hard.  It had to hurt.  She was hoping for a flinch, a groan, _anything_ to indicate he was coming around, but he did nothing of the sort.

Diego took them out of Peabody’s quiet little suburb and headed downtown, not speaking except to swear under his breath when they hit a snarl of traffic and had to sit through a light twice.  Allison ran her fingers through Five’s hair, giving comfort he couldn’t feel, watching the scenery rush by as she kept the pressure on his wound.  He’d thought they were close to the end, now.  She wanted to believe it, that they were just spitting distance from getting their hands on Harold Jenkins and stopping the end of the world.  She _had_ to believe it.  Her brothers and sister were going to adore Claire.

“I can’t understand why he’s doing this,” she muttered.

Diego didn’t have to ask who she was talking about.  “That’s because you’re not completely bananas.”

“No, I mean – usually I can figure out what crazy men want.  God knows I’ve dated my fair share of them.  But if Peabody knows anything about the relationship between Vanya and the rest of us, what would make him think he could get back at us for… whatever his deal is, through Vanya?  He has to know how estranged we were.  Are.  Anyone who read her book would think we couldn’t care less if something happened to her.”

“Maybe she told him you and her were trying to reconnect, and he saw an opportunity.”

“They met right after Dad’s funeral.  We were barely speaking to one another yet.”  Allison sighed heavily and rubbed her eyes, dropped her hand back into Five’s hair.  “We abandoned her,” she said.  “ _I_ abandoned her.  I was so wrapped up in my little fairytale life, making sure I got everything I wanted, I never even thought….”  And when she had, she’d quashed the swell of guilt like a bug.  “No wonder she wouldn’t listen to me.  I pretended she didn’t exist for more than ten years, then came back into her life and started giving her relationship advice?  What was I thinking?”

“You had a career,” Diego reminded her.  “You got married, you had a kid to take care of.  And no offense to Vanya, but she was just as happy to pretend _we_ didn’t exist, except when she could exploit our shitty childhood for attention.”

“I still could’ve picked up the phone once in a while!  Reached out.  Done _something._   If he hurts her… if he hurts her, I will fucking kill him.”

“That’s the spirit.”

She sighed again, tipping her head back against the seat.  “Did you ever see her?”

“Yeah,” Diego said quietly, “and I always acted like I didn’t.  I was so pissed about that goddamn book.”  He eased into the turn lane for the bridge.  They were halfway across the river before he added, “Last year, she was walking home one night from rehearsal or whatever – had her violin with her – and some wastoid followed her for three blocks, shouting all sorts of bullshit.”

Allison leaned sideways a bit to look at Diego’s face.  His expression could’ve been carved from stone.  “Is he dead?”

“Nah.  Too many people around.”  _And none of them did anything_ went unsaid.  “But he won’t be bothering any more women.  I told myself I would’ve done it for anyone.”

He would have and they both knew it, but Allison understood.  As soon as she’d seen Vanya standing in the foyer that day, looking small and wan, a decade of silence and a blistering tell-all suddenly seemed trivial.  That was her _sister_. 

“I’ll call her again,” she decided.  “Maybe she’s home and hasn’t checked her messages yet, or she called _us_ while we’ve been out.”

“She got a workplace we could contact?”

“Um….” Allison squeezed her eyes shut, trying to think back to the conversations she’d had with Vanya.  “She said she mostly teaches from her apartment, but – oh, she picks up a couple lessons a week at a music school.  I’ll check the phone book once we get home.  I know I’ll remember the name when I see it.”

“All right.  I’m gonna double-check the police file, see if he has another address anywhere.”

They were still further away from the Academy than Allison would’ve liked, but as Diego took them towards the city, she began spotting bits and pieces she recognized, like picking up breadcrumbs of her old life.  Involuntarily, she recalled another exchange she’d had with Vanya – when Vanya had said Allison was better off here – and winced.  Sure, it’d been insensitive, but her sister was trying to _comfort_ her, in her socially-inept way, and Allison had gone off like a firework.  Just one more nail in the coffin.  If she’d kept her composure, more gently pointed out how desperately she wanted to go home to her daughter….

Before she could start stewing in guilt, there was a wisp of a groan from her lap, barely audible over the engine.  Relief enveloped her as Five lifted his hand, swiped clumsily at his face, let his arm flop down over the edge of the seat.  His lashes fluttered.  It was a slow, tedious slog to consciousness, but, eventually, he cracked his eyes open.

“Hey,” Allison murmured, stroking his hair, “nice of you to join us.”

Five’s eyelids were at half-mast and he apparently wasn’t going to bother raising them further.  He squinted up at her for a minute, face scrunched in what Allison assumed was pain, and then he slurred, “Who the hell are you?”

“What,” she said blankly.

Forgoing all pretense of driving safely, Diego twisted around in his seat, staring first at Five, then at Allison.  She was too dumbfounded to insist he watch where he was going.  Before either of them could overcome their shock, Five relaxed minutely, the furrows between his eyebrows smoothing out.  “Right,” he said.  “Forgot.  You all used to be a lot… younger.” 

“God, Five, don’t do that to – Diego, the _road_!” A horn blared.  Allison instinctively clamped her free arm across Five’s chest, holding him still as Diego cursed and dodged a van by centimeters.

“Am I bleeding all over your… I’ll be nice and call this junkheap a car?” Five wondered, sounding just this side of conscious, and also pretty loopy in a way Allison hadn’t heard since he sustained a concussion as a child.  It would’ve been funny were she not afraid he was going into shock.

“Blood’s not the worst thing I’ve had to clean out of the seats,” Diego said.  “Trust me, I’ve taxied Klaus around.  When did you get hurt?”

“ _When_ ,” Five scoffed.  He was clearly lucid enough to be patronizing.  “I don’t know.  Time isn’t just… an inevitable progression, the way all you idiots see it.  It’s… malleable.  It can be looped back on itself.  Like a… can one of you hand me my shoelaces?  You’re not smart enough for the scientific explanation, but even a kindergartner can understand a diagram… I’ll show you how the Commission HQ’s plane of reality intersects with our own –”

“Okay, forget when.”  He’d already started fading again, if the babbling was anything to go by.  Allison gently slapped his cheek.  With what seemed like enormous effort, Five focused his eyes on her.  “ _How_ did you get hurt?”

“Must’ve been the grenade….”

“What.” Both Allison and Diego said it this time.

“Second grenade,” Five corrected himself, flapping a hand carelessly.  “I was too close to that one… could be shrapnel… shit, maybe it was when the Handler shot at me.  You know, I can’t remember.  I feel sick.”

Allison glanced at the clock on the dashboard.  They’d been in the car for almost ten minutes; she judged that enough to start with and tentatively lifted the t-shirt.  It was soaked through.  To her dismay, blood continued to leak from the wound in a thin, steady stream, no signs of clotting at all.  She put the pressure back on and leaned as far towards the front seat as possible.  “Drive faster,” she said in an undertone.  Diego did.  “Five, why is everyone _constantly_ trying to kill you?”

“Because they’re afraid of me.”  Five looked much too thrilled by this fact.  Beneath Allison’s free hand, his forehead was terribly clammy.  “I’m going to stop the apocalypse, so they sent Hazel and Cha-Cha to liquidate me.  It won’t work.  They’re the best… but they’re amateurs compared to me.  Blunt instruments.  My jobs were… orders of _magnitude_ more important than theirs… I shaped history and none of you even know it.  I’m… I’m revolution packed into a suitcase bomb.  Wanna know what happened to Joseph Force Crater?  Of course you don’t… you don’t have a clue who that is.”

Perplexed, Allison sought Diego’s eyes in the rearview mirror.  “Precious, isn’t he?” Diego said.  “Should’ve heard him the time he downed twenty-five ounces of tequila.”

“He _what_.”

“Where’s Dolores?” Five mumbled.  “She’s gonna yell at me….”

That name rang a bell.  He’d mentioned her before, though she didn’t recall when.  “Five, who’s Dolores?”

Five made a soft humming noise, but that was all.  His eyes were closed and even his lips had gone bone-white now.  Squeezing his shoulder, Allison looked up at the mirror again.  Diego almost squirmed, glancing away quickly.  “She’s, ah… his girlfriend.”

Convinced she’d heard wrong, Allison repeated, “His girlfriend.”  She couldn’t wrap her head around the concept.  Her first, uncharitable thought was _I can’t believe there’s a woman on earth who’d put up with his attitude_ , followed by _who would believe he’s actually fifty-eight_ , then _there are people who get off on that sort of thing_ , and, finally, _oh God, I’m calling the police_.  “You – do you _know_ this woman?”

“Well.  We haven’t been formally introduced, but we’ve met.” 

_What_.  Realizing her mouth was hanging open, Allison closed it.  She got the impression Diego didn’t want to be having this conversation in front of Five, whether he was semi-conscious or not, but the _implications_ here were making her nauseous.  Was one horrifying revelation per day not enough?  Five had begun muttering to himself; as far as she could tell, he was trying to calculate how much blood he’d already lost and how much more he _could_ lose before it was fatal. 

“Diego,” she said after a minute, in the calmest voice she could manage, “I don’t care how old he _mentally_ is, if this Dolores is seriously in a relationship with a thirteen-year-old boy –”

“I think it’s more of an emotional connection,” Diego said.

She could not believe this was happening.  “Have you completely lost your mind?!”

“Allison,” Five said faintly.  Giving the back of Diego’s head a filthy look, Allison bent down to listen.  “Stop shouting.  I have a headache.”  The only words that were actually comprehensible were ‘shouting’ and ‘headache’.  The rest ran together into a blur of phonemes and she had to guess from context.

“I’m sorry.”  She almost reflexively tacked _sweetie_ onto the end, like she was talking to Claire, but caught herself just in time.  “Diego.”

“I swear, it’s not as bad as it sounds.”  He split his attention between the road and the mirror, staring hard at Allison as if he was trying to telepathically communicate.  “Supposedly they’ve been close for a _long time_.  Maybe you should think of it as a _mental_ thing.”

The lightbulb turned on.

For a second, she just stared at Five.  Forty-five years in the ruins of the human race after the apocalypse.  He’d come back alone, but he talked about Dolores in the present tense, and… good grief, Allison _was_ an idiot.  “She isn’t –”

“We’re almost there,” Diego said loudly, taking a corner a little too sharply.  The car juddered over the curb, Allison bounced, and there was nothing she could do to keep Five from being jolted.  He almost _whimpered_.  Allison’s stomach clenched.  She hadn’t thought he was capable of making a sound like that.  Fortunately, they careened to a halt at the Academy just seconds later.

“It’s all right, we’re here,” she told Five, easing herself out from beneath his head as Diego opened her door.  Before they took him inside to practice medicine without a license, however, she turned to Diego and whispered, “She’s not real, is she?”

“She’s a mannequin,” Diego replied, equally quiet.

It was testament to how peculiar Allison’s life had become recently that she felt a rush of relief, rather than even more concern, which was probably the appropriate reaction.  “Wonderful,” she said.  “You couldn’t have just told me that?”

“Look, you said it yourself, he’s –” Diego spun a finger around his ear in the universal symbol for _crazy_.  “We’re trying to keep the world from ending and he’s the one who knows what’s up.  If that means playing along so we don’t shatter his perception of reality or whatever….”

“Okay, okay.”  He had a point.  They’d be in real trouble if Five cracked any further than he already had.  Wasting no more time, Allison bent down and locked her arms around Five’s chest.  “I’ll pull, then you grab his legs.  Let’s get him inside.”

**Author's Note:**

> “I am revolution packed into a suitcase bomb” is a quote from comics!Five. always loved it.
> 
> thanks for reading!


End file.
